EXPECTING mums and dads will be allowed to take up to two months unpaid parental leave together under a major redrafting of industrial laws to help working parents.

And they will be given greater flexibility in nominating when they want to take it, with the dumping of rules that restrict fathers to only taking parental leave when a baby is born.

Expectant mums will also be afforded greater protection in the workplace, under new laws to be announced today by Workplace Minister Bill Shorten, with all mums-to-be given the right to move to a safe job at their workplace regardless of how long they have been with an employer.

Currently only women who have been employed for more than 12 months before getting pregnant have this right to move into safer jobs to prevent risk to themselves or their unborn child.

It will now be made available to all workers who fall pregnant regardless of tenure.

Women struggling through their pregnancies will also be given special maternity leave for illness or sickness without being penalised by employers.

Special leave for women who get sick during pregnancy will now no longer be deducted from their 12 month unpaid maternity leave entitlement or impacted by ordinary sick leave.

But dads will also be the big winners from the changes, with the current rules on concurrent parental leave – three weeks – to be increased to eight weeks.

While many businesses will see the move as yet another burden to the cost of doing business, the Government will argue that greater flexibility for women wanting to continue working after childbirth will add to the nation’s productivity.

The NSW Business Chamber has warned of a tough year ahead for Australian businesses and has claimed more regulation by the Federal Government as an issue.

But the changes, coming from the recent review of the Fair Work Act, are designed to make it easier for women to keep their jobs and re-enter the workforce after child-birth. Working mothers have contributed much to the doubling in the national household income over the past 30 years, with almost as many women - 5.5 million women – as the 6.6 million men now in the workforce.

Legislation will to go before Parliament in June/July and the measures would come into affect later this year should the Gillard Government be re-elected, or if agreed to by the Opposition.

“New and expecting mums want to work, but they also want and need flexibility from their employers,” Mr Shorten told The Daily Telegraph.

“This is a fact that modern workplaces need to come to terms with.”

“We want to better protect pregnant women at work and we want to provide more flexibility for families with newborn children.”

Sydney Database manager, 30 year old Anita Mertkhanian, is planning to take eight months maternity leave for her second child and said employer flexibility was vital to not only good child rearing in the early months but in allowing women back into productive jobs.

"For those couples that have the flexibility, it'd be great for the [male partners] to spend more time with the kids, and be more hands on like most mums are," she said.

“I can't wait to meet my new child, it's only seven weeks to go. I think I'll be grateful that I don't have to worry about work for a few months," she said.

"The paid parental leave does help a little bit as well, financially it means I can spend those few extra months at home with my kids"

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